Replies

1. 
   RW | Apr 13, 2003 10:22pm | #1

   I'd wager most that have lasers would never go back. I can't believe how long it took me to get on the bandwagon. Things that used to take hours for layout now take twenty minutes. The cliche you get what you pay for applies. 

   Things you want to pay attention to if you're going to get one - is it a compensated model, i.e. can you use it outside in the sun without the laser going wacky (cheapies at HD don't do this, for instance), can you run 90degree angles with it, can you use it horizontally (like for grid ceilings and foundations) and vertically (for that three story open entry wall) - and what does it shoot for a beam. Visible beams are great, but limited. The farther you go and the more light you have, the less good they do you. Invisible beams require catchers.

   I got a Hilti PR24 and love it. Inside, I go with the visible beam. It even comes with a little handheld gadget where you slap it on the wall and the beam just goes back and forth in an arc over it while you mark your lines. Outside, it has the invisible beam too and you use a beam catcher. It shoots out the nose 90 degrees to the rotating head, so you can lay it on a floor and line it on a chalkline and mark perpendicular reference marks for adjoining walls on the floor, the wall, the ceiling.

   Self leveling, my opinion, gotta have. Why get a laser if you still have to stand there and putz around with a bubble? Far as I know, non self leveling lasers won't kick off if they're bumped either, so the potential is there for getting at tapped and not knowing it, then your layout is all jacked up. Suspect that would ruin your day if you discovered it after the concrete was poured in the forms.

   "The child is grown / The dream is gone / And I have become / Comfortably numb "      lyrics by Roger Waters

2. 
   mapleboy | Apr 13, 2003 10:37pm | #2

   I have used a PLS5 for about 5 years and it is one of the best tool investments I have ever made. When we have much foundation (outdoors) work to do we try to start at daybreak, the beam becomes very hard to see at distances over 10 feet in bright sunlight. This tool is excellent for plumbing and levelling work also. If you use it for squaring work, there is one caveat, the beams that come out of the side of the laser are offset exactly one inch. If you do not move your marks the one inch, or if you move them the wrong way, you will have an interesting foundation.  It is a self-levelling tool and it has proven to be very sturdy. The company rep I talked to said, treat it like a camera, no better, no worse. We try not to leave it in high risk areas, under the horses, under stepladders, on the edge of the stud pile, etc. This unit can be mounted on a standard camera tripod which is very handy for setting pocket door frames and marking a wall for chair rail. It also comes with a gizmo that allows it to magnetically attach to metal studs. We have fastened a steel framing square to the wall with a clamp and stuck the laser on using this bracket. My floor guys used mine one day and bought one immediately. They use it to turn corners and even used it to run a 45 degree tile pattern around a convenience store counter and it met in the back perfectly.  My electrician likes to bum it to use to transfer recessed lighting marks from the floor to the cathedral ceiling. Just sit in on the mark, up the ladder, and put the center of the can on the red dot! My one home is 12/12 roof with lots of cathedrals and an open loft. I can't begin to count the ways we used there. To sum up, an excellent tool, watch the inch on layoff.

3. 
   Timuhler | Apr 14, 2003 12:59am | #3

   We bought the PLS5x about a month ago.  So far we love it.  It made layout on the floor a snap (no pun intended).  We had a very cut up house and this thing made it really easy to square everything.

   We had some 16' walls in the garage for an RV and we were able to plumb them very quickly.  Good thing too, it was very windy for about 2 weeks.

4. 
   fireball | Apr 14, 2003 04:09am | #4

   I see carpenters using lasers on every job now, and as an electrician have had a chance to borrow them on occasion.For the most part they're very good,but they aren't magic.Let me give two examples:We just completed a Best Buy store that had over a hundred high bay metal halide light fixtures.The bar joists didn't line up from bay to bay, so we went out and bought a laser plumb bob,intending to lay out the lights on the floor and then project them onto the roof deck with the laser plumb bob.What a pretty brass tool it was.And with a pretty red light.Did the first couple of rows and then the next day decided to doublecheck the layout.We put the laser on the marks and a third of them were off of where we had hung the fixture the day before.After a bunch of BS we found that you could project the mark after carefully setting up the "instrument",turn it 90 degrees and the mark would be an inch off.Sometimes.We went back to measuring off of the bar joists and they came out perfectly.If we hadn't doublechecked the magic laser,we'd have been screwed.That tool was sent back with a POMFS label on it.

   OK,so you say that a laser plumb bob isn't the same thing as a "real" laser.Last year we did a football field,with the same light poles they have at the Daytona Speedway.The GC had a very expensive rotary laser,for doing the field (football fields aren't flat,they are supposed to have an exact crown)and rubberized track.Our light poles sat on top of pre-cast bases set 16' into the ground.The lighting levels were engineered for the poles to be exactly the right distance from, and above, the field.For the first pole ,I used a transit and the GC checked with the laser.Supposedly I was an inch and a half difference in height from the benchmark.Within tolerance but the GC said I must not have had the transit perfectly level, or it needed calibrated,etc.A few days later setting another pole base I asked for a second shot off of the first base.Now the laser says it's an inch lower.So of course it couldn't be the laser or the guy using it,but my 5 yds of concrete surrounding a 28' tall pre-cast base must have settled.I went back to the transit and the light poles came out great.At the end of football season the school board made the GC go back and regrade the field because of the standing water on the sidelines,10 feet from the catch basins.

   I shouldn't have run on about lasers,but I just wanted to make the point that people think  because they're high tech,they trust them to be perfect.How do you know when the self-leveling feature isn't working perfectly? Foolproof gyroscopes? I want a laser too,but I won't stop doublechecking when I do get one.

1. 
   JohnSprung | Apr 15, 2003 03:39am | #5

   > How do you know when the self-leveling feature isn't working perfectly?

   I'd suggest checking against a water level over a good long distance. 

   -- J.S.